


1000 Days

by eternaleponine



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-307, Trigedasleng
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 01:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16777345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: It's been 1000 days since Lexa died.  Clarke knows, because she's been counting.Madi doesn't, and yet today, of all days, she asks for a story about the Commander.Clarke tells her about Lexa instead.





	1000 Days

"Clarke, _tel ai sontaim op_."

_Clarke, tell me a story._

A common request, no matter the time of day, but what child didn't want a bedtime story? 

"It's late, Madi," Clarke said, although it wasn't, really. The sun just set early these days, and Clarke was tired. Physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. The short days and long nights were taking their toll, and it would get worse before it got better. She wondered if they would get snow this year...

" _Beja?_ " Madi looked up at her with wide eyes as blue as the autumn sky, and Clarke sighed, because she wasn't good at saying no to that look yet, and she wondered if she ever would be. 

"What story do you want to hear?" Clarke asked. She had tried to tell Madi stories from books at first, but as the days had passed and Madi's hunger to know about the world outside of their valley and what life was like before it all ended, she'd started telling her about her friends and family, about life in space and life on the ground and all the things they'd done to survive. 

Well, not all of the things that they'd done. 

Maybe not even most. 

She didn't want Madi to hate her, after all. She hated herself enough for both of them, even now. 

_Oh, believe me, I can do both._

She shivered at the memory, the flicker of rage that accompanied it, and the regret that stomped it out before it could truly kindle. A week she'd been kept in that tower, nursing her anger, clinging to a grudge. A week they could have had together, if only...

"Clarke," Madi said insistently, dragging her back into the present. " _Din yu sen ai in?_ "

"Sorry," Clarke said. "I... what story did you ask for?"

" _Tel ai sontaim hashta Heda op,_ " Madi repeated. 

"No," Clarke said, her voice too loud and too sharp. Madi flinched, and Clarke forced herself to soften. She stroked back Madi's hair and drew the blankets up around her a little more securely. _Tell me a story about the Commander._

_No,_ she wanted to say again. _Pick something else. Pick anything but that._

She'd never really told Madi about the Commander, but of course she'd heard of her. _Everyone_ had heard of her. Madi knew all about her Nightblood and what it meant: being stolen from her family and trained to kill other children or die trying, being forced to lead people who would scrutinize her every move and look for any excuse to bring her down if they didn't like her decisions. Her parents had hidden her from the _Fleimkepa_ scouts to keep her from that fate, but just because she'd been taught to fear _becoming_ her didn't mean she wasn't curious about the one who had come before her: Lexa _kom Trikru_ , the Last True Commander.

Madi knew that Clarke had known her; it was impossible to tell her own story without admitting that much. But she didn't know how well Clarke had known her. She didn't know that they had been more than leaders who forged an alliance, more than friends...

She didn't know that sometimes Clarke reached for Lexa when she went to sleep at night, or woke up in the morning, even though they'd never had that chance in life, only that tiny stolen sliver of time in the late afternoon sun...

She didn't know... and yet she chose today to ask for that story. 

Today of all days. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, or a week or a month from now. Today.

As if she somehow knew that today was important, even though there was no way for her to know. 

1000 days. 

1000 days since Lexa died, and Clarke died with her. Not her body, but the spark that animated it, leaving behind a shell of a person that she barely recognized. 

It was getting better, slowly. _She_ was getting better. She had to, because Madi needed her. Yes, she could feed herself, find shelter, make sure all her basic needs were met, but she was a child, and one of the things that a child needed was affection. One need only remember Ontari to see what happened when one grew up without it. 

Clarke shivered again, remembering her sitting on Lexa's throne, black blood spattered across her face, holding...

"Clarke?"

"Sorry," Clarke muttered. "I'm sorry, Madi." 

"You can make it up to me by telling me a story," Madi said, flashing her an impish grin. 

Clarke made herself smile back. "Okay," she said, smoothing back her hair again. "But I don't want to tell you about the Commander." Madi opened her mouth to protest, but Clarke touched her lips gently with her finger, hushing her. "I want to tell you about a girl named Lexa, who I loved with all of my heart." 

Madi put her head in Clarke's lap and looked up at her as the words spilled out, telling the story of two girls on opposite sides of a war who realized that their people would be better off working together against a common enemy than against each other, and then realized that they – the two of them, apart from their people – might be better off together than they were apart. She told Madi about how it was an impossible task to separate their own hearts' desires from the needs of their people, even when it meant breaking them, over and over again. She told her about how they found a way to mend their trust and with it their hearts, slowly, piece by piece and bit by bit, even when it felt like everything was against them. 

She told Madi about the Lexa she had known in those quiet moments together, the girl who let down her walls and let Clarke inside, who let her see behind the Commander's façade. The girl who had let Clarke see her soft, and let Clarke see her scared. The girl who had listened when her closest advisors wished her to be deaf, who had bent even when she risked breaking. The girl who had wanted more and better for her people. The girl who dared to say, ' _Jus nou drein jus daun._ ' The girl who had been willing to sacrifice everything to wage peace instead of war... and in the end, had. 

Twice.

Clarke told her how she had been strong and brave right until the end...

Madi had crawled out from under her blanket and into Clarke's lap somewhere between Lexa falling to the ground, her hands pressed to her stomach in a futile attempt to stop her life from draining away and their reunion in the City of Light, and Clarke held her and rocked her, her tears soaking into the little girl's hair. 

"Do you think you will?" Madi asked after a long time. 

"Do I think I will what?" Clarke asked.

"Meet again?" Madi looked up at her, and Clarke wiped away a tear that had fallen on her cheek... or maybe it had been there already. 

"Yes," Clarke said. "We will. Someday." _When we owe nothing more to our people._

Madi nodded, and let Clarke settle her back into bed, closing her eyes as Clarke combed her fingers through her hair. Just when Clarke thought she'd finally drifted off, her eyes cracked open again. "I wish I could have met her," she said. "I wish she could have stayed."

"Me too," Clarke said. " _Em don hod yu in, seim bilaik ai hod yu in._ " _She would have loved you, just like I love you._

" _Seim bilaik em hod **yu** in,_" Madi mumbled. _Just like she loves **you**._

" _Sha, ai strik Natblida,_ " Clarke said. "Just like that."

She stayed with Madi until she was sure she was asleep, then went to tend to the fire. Propped next to the fireplace was her walking stick, the one she'd found in the ruins of Polis. The one that had once been part of Lexa's throne. She reached for it and laid it across her lap, cradling it in her arms like she might have... like she'd once...

"I miss you," she whispered. "Every day. Every minute. I miss you."

There was no answer, of course. What would she say, if she was here?

If she was here, they wouldn't have to talk at all...

Clarke's breath caught, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "1000 days, Lexa. I don't know how..."

_Our fight is not over, Clarke._

"I know. I know."

But 1000 days...

_I'll always be with you._

It wasn't enough. 

It had to be enough. 

Clarke put the stick back in its place, her fingers tracing lightly over the smooth grain. 

1000 days without Lexa.

It hurt. It would always hurt. 

But letting her go, forgetting, would hurt more. 

So she would remember. With every breath that she took and every beat of her heart, she would remember.

She curled up beside Madi, feeling the girl stretch and then curl into her warmth, and she kissed her temple and felt her settle. 

1000 days without Lexa, and 1000 nights, and she was lonely, but she wasn't alone.

Clarke slept, and woke, and held Madi closer as she sighed. 

1001...

**Author's Note:**

> I came back from my posting hiatus just a little early, because, well... 
> 
> _Ste yuj,_ friends. _Oso gonplei nou ste odon nowe._


End file.
